Page 76 - The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 9 and 10: English, 2007 (Revised)

Elements of Style
2.3 identify a variety of elements of style in texts and explain how they help communicate meaning and enhance the effectiveness of the texts (e.g., determine the differences in meaning or effect when the same symbol, such as the sun or water, is used in two different poems; compare the images, symbols, and literary devices used in an Aboriginal myth and a Greek myth; explain how a mythical allusion in a piece of literature or an advertisement enhances the theme or mes- sage; determine what effects are achieved in works by two different authors, one of whom uses a variety of sentence types while the other does not)
Teacher prompts: “What effect is achieved by the use of so many short, simple declarative sentences?” “What effect is created when life- less things are described as having human feelings – as in ‘the moaning wind’?” “What effect is created when something very trivial is compared to something very important, or vice versa?”
3. Reading With Fluency
By the end of this course, students will:
Reading Familiar Words
3.1 automatically understand most words in a variety of reading contexts (e.g., idioms, euphemisms, and slang expressions in literary texts; academic and technical terms in reports and essays; the different meanings of a familiar word in different contexts)
Teacher prompt: “Did previous encounters with these technical terms in your textbook help you to understand them in this new context?”
Reading Unfamiliar Words
3.2 use appropriate decoding strategies to read and understand unfamiliar words (e.g., use a dictionary of foreign words and expressions to find the meaning of foreign words and phrases in dialogue in a novel; use knowledge of pre- fixes, suffixes, and roots to predict meaning; make personal lists of common prefixes and suffixes for easy reference; read beyond an unfamiliar word or phrase to infer meaning from the overall sense of the passage)
Teacher prompts: “Reread the whole para- graph as many times as you need to to clarify the meaning.” “What context clues can you use to figure out the meaning of the word?”
Developing Vocabulary
3.3 identify and use a variety of strategies to expand vocabulary (e.g., identify examples of idioms, euphemisms, slang, dialect, acronyms, academic language, and technical terminology and use a variety of resources to check their meaning; review the etymology of unfamiliar words in an etymological dictionary)
Teacher prompts: “How do you think new words make it into a dictionary?” “Are some sources better than others for checking the meaning of new or specialized words?”
4. Reflecting on Skills and Strategies
By the end of this course, students will:
Metacognition
4.1 describe a variety of strategies they used before, during, and after reading; explain which ones they found most helpful; and identify detailed steps they can take to improve as readers (e.g., describe the strategies they used in reading a short story and explain how the strategies were helpful; use a Venn diagram to identify which strategies are useful at a particular stage of the reading process and which are useful at more than one stage – or at all stages)
Teacher prompts: “How did the use of an anticipation guide help you in reading the short story?” “Explain how you visualize text and why visualizing is important to the read- ing process.” “How did the role-play activity extend your understanding of the conflicts in the text?”
Interconnected Skills
4.2 identify a variety of their skills in listening, speaking, writing, viewing, and representing and explain how the skills help them read more effectively (e.g., describe in a double-entry journal how viewing pictures of a historical period contributes to their understanding of fiction set in that period)
Teacher prompts: “How did viewing and making jot notes on the slide presentation about the historical period help you to understand the novel’s setting?” “Did creat- ing a role-play about the conflict contribute anything new to your understanding of the central character’s motivation?”
READING AND LITERATURE STUDIES
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English
ENG2D